


Miscommunications

by Daydreaming_Scribe



Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Awkward Crush, Episode: s05e13 Proving Ground, Gen, Paranoia, Self-Doubt, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24621280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daydreaming_Scribe/pseuds/Daydreaming_Scribe
Summary: After a run in with one of the newest SG-1 recruits, Daniel worries he might've been overly intimidating. But a talk with his team reveals that everything is not as it seems.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Miscommunications

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first Stargate fic. Pretty angsty in the middle, but it has a fluffy ending. Basic premise is Daniel misunderstands an interaction with someone and is filled with a fear of how other people perceive him, and SG-1 sets him straight. There's mentions of a 15-year age gap crush, but rest assured Daniel is a complete gentleman.
> 
> Credits to EruthiawenLuin and SpaceMatriarchy for betaing. Enjoy!

After getting knocked over so many times, Daniel probably should know by now to not walk and read at the same time. But he's just gotten scans of the tablets recently recovered from P2X-915, and can’t take his eyes away from them. It's cuneiform, but he isn’t exactly clear on the region or language it could be attached to. In fact, there are a few symbols that he isn't familiar with. 

Well, that isn't entirely true. These new symbols look vaguely Egyptian. Which might indicate that it's a transitional writing system between Cuneiform and Hieroglyphs.

He's rushing to his office, trying his best to translate what he can from the tablets on Ereshkigal, presumably the System Lord with dominion over that planet. From what he can tell, she was a particularly paranoid Goa'uld, often requiring those who wished to meet with her to be led through 7 different Stargates by her First Prime Neti, discarding personal property as they passed through each world until they were eventually naked before her. 

It has a lot of serious implications for the origins of the myth of Ishtar's descent. There's mentions of the exchange of Dumuzi between Ishtar and Ereshkigal, and how this exchange caused fluctuations in weather patterns. Obviously most mythologists and archaeologists assumed it was a myth devised to explain the change of seasons, an origin for later more popular myths such as Persephone and Hades, but Daniel's mind is racing a thousand miles a minute with the implication that the Goa'uld might have weather-altering technology like the touchstone they encountered on Madrona.

He barely has time to come to terms with this when he falls flat on his back, papers flying everywhere. Glasses askew, he finds himself staring up at the harsh white light on the ceiling. The papers he had been holding are everywhere. Letting out a groan of “ouch”, he pulls himself up into a sitting position, adjusting his glasses and grabbing the scattered papers.

“Oh my god!” Almost immediately, his unintended assailant squats down beside him. Hands shoot out to grab flying pieces of paper with rapid accuracy. “I am so sorry, I was just in a hurry, because it's my first day and I'm already running late for my debriefing with my new team and -” The voice sounds eerily familiar, and looking up, Daniel almost immediately recognizes her.

“Lieutenant Satterfield!” He exclaims, reaching out to take the collected papers from her. “I didn't expect to be seeing you here so soon! I'm glad to see you've been assigned your SG team.” He continues collecting the rest of the scans, trying to simultaneously sort them into some sort of order. “You know, I never got to say, I was really impressed with how fast you translated the Argos artifact during the final training exercise. It took you no time at all, compared to the other linguistics experts on SG teams. If you're not too busy on your new missions, you can always stop by my office. I never mind extra help translating.”

Looking back up, the smile falls from Daniel's face. The Lieutenant's gone as white as the papers she still has clutched in her grasp. Before he can ask her if she's fine, she darts down the hall, disappearing from his sight as rapidly as she appeared, leaving behind a very confused and bewildered Daniel. 

* * *

Daniel would be wrong if he said a part of him didn't enjoy playing the villain in the training exercises. Jack, in his infinite wisdom, suggests he has a few psychological issues to sort out.

Daniel knows his friend meant it jokingly, but then again, Jack doesn't know how right he is. Maybe the Colonel suspects, because he'd been on the wrong side of Daniel before, when the sarcophagus on Terella had slowly driven him mad with power. But Jack, ever forgiving of his SG-1 team and much less so with outsiders, had been willing to mark Daniel's behavior off as a side effect of the sarcophagus, which they knew now, from experience, had been what drove the Goa'uld to become megalomaniacal and heartless.

There are things about Daniel that Jack doesn’t know, though. He hadn't had the insight into Daniel's brain when they let Chaka and the other Unas free on the world of the people who had enslaved them. Because while Daniel was worried for what might happen to the humans, another more vindictive side of him decided that they'd reaped what they'd sown. A fear of the Unas might be understandable, given what they'd been through. Enslaving them, especially when they were intimately aware how it felt like being a slave, was a whole other thing.

Not that he would admit that to Jack, because he knew exactly how the man would react to it. He'd barely listened to Daniel about the many obvious red flags the Eurondans were sending up. His change of heart had only occurred once it became blatantly obvious that these people they'd made a deal with had very clear opinions on eugenics, and only then did SG-1 decide it was time to do a reenactment of World War 2 and condemn them to their death. They might've not met the other side, but knew enough to know that they were human, and "came in all shapes and sizes and colors," according to their very short-lived fascist allies.

But the Unas had been a completely different situation. SG-1 couldn't possibly interfere with a people's way of life, even if that included slavery, when the victims of these customs weren't ten year-old girls or beautiful young women to romance, but gigantic lizard-like monsters.

Yeah, there was no way he would admit those thoughts to Jack.

Worse still, there was that moment on Chulak. Where he'd destroyed a tank full of larval Goa'uld without hardly blinking an eye. There was no justifying what had been going on his mind, and even if later intelligence from the Tok'Ra would reveal that the Goa'uld have genetic memory passed down to them and became more and more evil with each generation, for all intents and purposes, he'd murdered a handful of small children with no regret. 

Well, not true. Those death cries had filled his dreams, joining visions of Sha're and Skaara's eyes glowing white and Hathor forcing herself upon him, and the bad memories he had before he even journeyed to through the gate. Any one of these nightmares can startle him awake in a cold sweat, but only the one of the Goa'uld larva terrifies him in the way it does. That the others might find out about him, and be horrified and disgusted. 

That probably wasn't true. Only Sam had witnessed the incident, and the expression on her face had been enough to tell Daniel that this was a secret they'd carry to the grave. She might've passed judgement on him for it, but ultimately she'd decided he was still a person worthy of being her friend, and he was grateful for her. Teal'c and Jack as well.

He wonders if they would feel the same if they'd seen the dark future Shifu had shown him. One where he'd killed Teal'c, jailed Carter and annihilated a city with millions of people in it. Was that it? Had Lieutenant Satterfield seen that spark of a tyrant inside him, so ominous that she had run away the minute she saw him? Maybe the training incident had made her subconsciously afraid of him?

“Earth to Daniel.”

Looking up from his tray, Daniel can see the other members of SG-1 looking on at him. None of them look particularly concerned, but then again, Daniel spacing out isn't exactly an unusual occurrence. From across the table, Jack gives him an expectant look.

“Head in the clouds, again, Spacemonkey?” Daniel looks back down at his plate of food, almost nothing eaten off of it. It isn't hard for him to lose his appetite, and Satterfield's apparent horror in reaction to him was enough to unsettle his stomach for a long while.

“No more than usual,” he sighs, rubbing underneath his eyes.

"Daniel, you okay?" Sam asks, concern flashing onto her face. “Did something happen?” Of course Sam can pick up on his mood immediately. She's the smartest of them by far, with emotions as well as science. Daniel waves a hand dismissively.

“It's fine, nothing terrible, I'm just thinking.”

“Whatever you're thinking of, DanielJackson, it clearly troubles you,” Teal'c says. “It would be better to resolve it sooner rather than later.”

Crap. With all three of them focused on him now, Daniel's not likely to be able to get out of this situation without telling them. He'd like to imagine Sam and Jack are what older siblings might feel like, if he'd ever had any, and the overprotectiveness they had toward him just makes that more apparent. Teal'c, for his part, seems to see him as a little pet. Not that the Jaffa doesn't respect him, of course, but he also seems well acquainted with having to save Daniel constantly. He loves that he can have a group of people around who care for him, but sometimes, it can get a little humiliating.

“Do you guys think I was.....” Evil? Terrifying? Verging on Sociopathic? “...a little too intimidating in the final training exercise we did recently?” He's greeted with three varying expressions of confusion and surprise.

“You? Intimidating?” Jack struggles to keep the laughter out of his voice. “Maybe the Voice Modulator Thingamajig was a little creepy, but I think the first clue to that it was a test should've been the fact that you were the big baddie in charge.” Daniel clamps down the flair of annoyance he feels at the Colonel's flippant reaction.

“Colonel,” Sam's voice has an almost warning tone, perhaps sensing this isn't the time for jokes. She looks back to Daniel, offering a slight smile. “You did what was required to make the test work, Daniel. There wasn't a time when you went overboard. Not that I think, at least.” Her expression turns from caring to curious in almost a microsecond, leveling a confused look at him. “Why'd you ask?”

He can admit every dark thought he's ever had, an action likely to send him right back to Dr. Mackenzie's ward. That sounds about as advisable as cuddling up to Apophis, so Daniel opts to recount the incident from this morning.

“I ran into Lieutenant Satterfield. Literally. She apologized and helped me pick up my papers, but the minute I congratulated her on her performance in the final training and offered her a chance to help me translate a couple things, she turned pale and hightailed it out of there. I didn't think the training exercise had been that traumatic, but apparently she's terrified of me.” As soon as he finishes, however, he sees the two other humans at the table share a knowing look. “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” Jack says, in that annoying way he does whenever he has a secret he wants to hide. “Rest assured, she definitely wasn't scared of you.”

Okay, that makes no sense. If that's the case, there's no way to explain her reaction to Daniel this morning. He turns to Sam, raising an eyebrow in question. But she's not budging either, biting the corner of her mouth to hide a smile.

“What are you two hiding?” He demands, becoming increasingly irritated. Now he's starting to get the gist of what's happening. Some practical joke, probably, one that Jack started and Sam didn't have the heart to stop. “What'd you tell the lieutenants during your one-on-ones, that I sleep with a teddy bear? That I have a collection of toe nails in a jar or some stupid thing like that?”

“We didn't tell them anything, Daniel,” Sam assures him, still fighting a smile. That does little to assuage him.

“Then what is it, then?” His voice gets a little too loud, drawing the attention of the other people in the cafeteria. Jack and Sam are a little startled by the reaction, but still endlessly amused.

“I believe she desires to have sexual relations with you, DanielJackson.”

Daniel chokes, feeling his face rapidly turning red. He turns toward Teal'c, who is currently devouring some of the questionable, neon-blue cafeteria jello. Sam and Jack also look on, shock evident on their faces.

“How the hell'd you know?” O’Neill demands, both shocked and impressed. The Jaffa quirks an eyebrow, looking on at his teammates.

“In a previous walkthrough of the facility before they began their training, Lieutenant Krogan made a comment about how she most likely wished that she could 'soap up' in the showers with DanielJackson. I can only assume his comment was meant to be one of a sexual nature, as I could detect a flushing throughout her body, and the following comments from their cohorts became increasingly more graphic.” Daniel can sympathize right now, feeling his entire body burning hot from head to toe.

“Think she has other ideas about late night translating with the reputable Dr. Jackson,” Jack teases, nudging Daniel's leg with his foot.

“Jack, don't be gross,” Daniel protests, pulling a face. “She's nearly 15 years younger than me.”

“Hey, age is but a number,” Jack protests, probably on account of him being that much older than the two other humans on SG-1. The archaeologist rolls his eyes.

“Sounds like something an old guy would say,” Daniel mutters into his coffee. His commanding officer levels an ugly scowl at him, while Sam lets a snort slip out.

The fear and paranoia that’s been building up inside all day dissipates almost immediately. So, Satterfield’s reaction wasn’t out of fear, but from a crush.

There’s nothing wrong with that, obviously. He had a fair amount of crushes on many professors and TAs throughout the many years he’d spent in college. Never acted on them, for obvious reasons, just like he won’t act on this for very different reasons, but there’s no harm in it.

Still, he might invite Sam along for these translation sessions. Just to make sure Satterfield doesn’t get the wrong idea.


End file.
